Author Dennis Tafoya remembers his time working in accident and emergency in a hospital in Doylestown, Philadelphia, in the 1980s.
One night, a call came in about a fire at a farmhouse-turned-meth lab, but when doctors attempted to help, the burn victim refused care and eventually died.
“It got me thinking about who ends up in a burning meth lab in the middle of the night,” said Tafoya in a recent call with Philadelphia newspaper The Inquirer.
That incident was the seed of the idea that, decades later, became Tafoya’s 2009 novel Dope Thief. It has since been adapted into a series of the same name on Apple TV+, written, directed, and executive produced by Peter Craig – who co-wrote the screenplay for 2010 crime thriller The Town – and executive produced by legendary filmmaker Ridley Scott.
Scott also directed the pilot, which introduces the two best friends-protagonists, Ray (Brian Tyree Henry) and Manny (Wagner Moura), who pose as DEA drug enforcement agents to steal money from small-time drug dealers.
